MRC Video Treat: Ronald Reagan Celebrates Fall of Berlin Wall

By

Rich Noyes

November 5, 2009 - 1:27pm

On June 12, 1987, as the liberal media elite were toasting the leader
of the Soviet Union[1] as a great champion of progress, President Ronald
Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to put
his money where his mouth was: "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you
seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern
Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr.
Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Gorbachev
did not open the gate or tear down the Berlin Wall, but two years later
the people of East Germany did. News broke in the U.S. late in the
afternoon (Eastern Time) on November 9, 1989 that the communist
government would no longer restrict travel to West Berlin. Just a few
hours later, ABC's PrimeTime Live hosted former President Ronald Reagan
to celebrate what would turn out to be the death blow against communism
in Eastern Europe. We found the tape in our archives, and posted a
video excerpt at right. (Audio excerpt here[2].)

Co-anchor Sam Donaldson, who as White House correspondent had been a
liberal antagonist during Reagan's presidency, told the former
President he would "get a lot of credit for helping bring this moment
about." Reagan told Donaldson that although he did not know when the
Wall would finally fall, " I'm an eternal optimist. I believed with all
my heart that it was in the future."

Reagan declared: "People have seen that Communism has
had its chance and it doesn't work."

He also reminded
Donaldson that on his visit to Berlin two years earlier, he witnessed
the East German police forcing people away from the gate so they could
not hear Reagan's speech over a loudspeaker. "So there was another sign
of their system and how it worked with their own people. They just
manhandled them and turned them around and would not let them, even
though they were staying in East Germany, not let them come near the
Wall."

Here's a transcript of that interview, conducted just a few hours after the Berlin Wall opened up on November 9, 1989:

CO-ANCHOR
SAM DONALDSON: A lot of political leaders over the years, since 1961,
in the West, have urged that that Wall be torn down, but the one, I
think, that people remember the most at this moment - and who's going
to get a lot of credit for helping bring this moment about - is former
President Ronald Reagan, who joins us live tonight from his office in
Los Angeles. Mr. President, glad to see you. Thank you for joining us.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Well, thank you, Sam. It's a great pleasure to be, well, in a way, talking with you again.

DONALDSON:
Well, two years ago, when you stood in front of the Wall - and we've
shown those pictures tonight - and you challenged, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear
down this wall," did you think it would come this soon?

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: Well, I didn't know when it would come, but I have to tell you,
I'm an eternal optimist. I believed with all my heart that it was in
the future, because that's a single country. This isn't a thing of a
division with two groups of people, or two different types of people
brought together within boundaries. These are Germans on each side of
the Wall, and the only reason that Wall is there, and there was a
difference, was because East Germany was under the domination of the
Soviet military when the war ended. And they didn't have any say about
what they could do, or what kind of government they would have.

DONALDSON:
Well, I know you made this point publicly many times. In your
conversations with Gorbachev, and at the end you got to be quite
intimate, from the standpoint of being able to talk to him one-on-one,
did you discuss the Wall, and what did he say?

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: No, not really. We- I got into the kind of generalities with
him about human rights, mainly. And then, of course, the things that we
were talking specifically about, arms reduction and so forth, and I
remember telling him - it wasn't original with me, but I told him -
that we didn't mistrust each other because we were armed. We were armed
because we mistrust each other. And if we were going to talk about
reducing arms, why don't we try to get together on reducing the things
that make for the mistrust between us. And he didn't disagree with
that. And at the same time, contrary to what some critics have said, I
never believed that we should just assume that everything was going to
be all right. And that's why I learned a Russian proverb which I used
on him a great deal, doveryai, no proveryai. He got to the place that
he would clap his hands over his ears when I said it. It means, "Trust,
but verify."

DONALDSON: Well, are you of the opinion, with
Gorbachev beset by all of the problems and troubles that he has at the
moment, that he is going to survive, that perestroika is going to
prosper?

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: Well, I have to believe that, but I do know that the great
threat to what he is trying to do does not come from outside his
borders. It comes from that hard-core political Communist bureaucracy
that has a vested interest in keeping that kind of totalitarian
government. So maybe if he doesn't move as fast as we would like to see
him move, it's because he knows that that threat is there behind him.
Now, by the same token, I think that those people who threaten him,
those hard-core Communists, must by now have seen the changing attitude
on the part of the people and they must be a little disturbed about
doing something that would bring them toe to toe against their own
people in the streets.

DONALDSON: Do you think the United
States can do something - it's a question often asked, and I know
you've wrestled with it - can do something, or should we do something,
to help Gorbachev?

PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, yes, I think we can,
and I think we have been doing these things, by continuing these
meetings with him and to deal with him, negotiating with him. I used to
bring him handwritten lists of dissenters that had been brought to my
attention in the Soviet Union. And every time we met, I would present
him with one of these lists and ask him if it was possible that these
people could be allowed to emigrate. And very shortly I would get word
that these people were on their way, many times to the United States.
So I believe that, as long as he's performing the way that he's
performing, we should do whatever we could that might be of help, and
yet, at the same time, short of interfering or rousing the enemy within
his own borders.

DONALDSON: A moment ago, you said that it was
unnatural for the two Germanys to be apart, that they were all Germans.
Do you believe that we're going to move rapidly toward a reunification
of Germany? Do you think our European allies want that?

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: I think they do. Now, I don't know how soon this can come. But
again, as I say, these people are Germans, living on each side of that
Wall. They didn't have much to do with the building of that Wall, or
the form of government in the eastern half that was forced upon them.
And I think it just makes sense that instead of wondering what we're
going to do with millions of refugees intent now upon getting out from
under that system in East Germany, to once again say, "You who are
Germans can stay in your homes and stay where you are, and it will be
the Germany you once knew."

DONALDSON: I know you've often said
that you don't believe your views have changed about the Soviet Union,
but you recognize that the Soviet Union may, in some sense,
particularly under Gorbachev, be changing. So I want to ask you about
your famous phrase, "the evil empire," that you in 1983 spoke in
Orlando, Florida, if memory serves. What do you think about it now?

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: Well, I have to tell you, I said that on purpose. There were
some things that I believed very deeply, from before the time that I
came into office. I believed that the best peace is peace through
strength. And I believed also that the Soviet Union needed to know and
to hear what we felt about them, so that, oh, maybe in some of the
previous meetings that had been held in which they had - people tried
to negotiate on a basis of just developing a friendship or something,
that we were aware of what the Communist totalitarianism was like, and
that we were realists.

DONALDSON: Well, aware, and in your
case, certainly very confident that it would fall. I remember in London
once, you talked about Communism eventually being consigned to the
dustheap of history. Do you feel vindicated?

PRESIDENT REAGAN:
Well, I have always believed that, and I think it will, and I think
there's evidence in the world today. We see all over the Communist part
of the world these great changes taking place, Hungary and in Poland,
in the eastern bloc and so forth, and other countries that way, and we
see a great wave of democracy sweeping the world. And I think what it
is, is people have had time in some 70-odd years of - since the
Communist revolution, I think the people have seen that Communism has
had its chance and it doesn't work.

DONALDSON: President Reagan, you're looking well, we're glad to see it, and we thank you for joining us tonight.

PRESIDENT
REAGAN: Well, thank you, Sam. It's a great pleasure to talk to you, and
to talk to you under these circumstances, with this announcement that's
just been made. If the Wall isn't torn down immediately, at least they
could keep the gates open. Could I just finish with one thing? When I
made that statement, with the Brandenburg Gate behind me, and I was
talking to a great audience of West Germans, in that statement about
the Wall, I had had an opportunity to look across the Wall. Now, the
people in West Berlin had arranged the sound system so that my voice
was carrying on both sides of the Wall. But I could see East German
police keeping the East German people in the streets from getting
anywhere near the Wall, to keep them from hearing, overhearing anything
that we might be saying on the other side, on the west side of that
Wall. So there was another sign of their system and how it worked with
their own people. They just manhandled them and turned them around and
would not let them, even though they were staying in East Germany, not
let them come near the Wall.

DONALDSON: Thank you, President Reagan. Thank you very much, and give our best to your wife.

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